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Ewing v. California
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Ewing v. California

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued November 5, 2002
Decided March 5, 2003
Full case
name

Gary Ewing v. State of California

Citations

538 U.S. 11 (more)

Defendant convicted in Los Angeles County

Superior Court; conviction affirmed by
Prior history California Court of Appeal; California
Supreme Court declined review, and the U.S.
Supreme Court granted certiorari.
Holding
California's three strikes law does not violate the Eighth
Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual
punishment.
Court membership

Case opinions
Majority

O'Connor, joined by Rehnquist, Kennedy

Concurrence Scalia
Concurrence Thomas
Dissent

Stevens, joined by Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer

Dissent

Breyer, joined by Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg

Laws applied

U.S. Const. amend. VIII; Cal. Penal Code 667

Ewing v. California, 538 U.S. 11 (2003), is one of two cases upholding a sentence imposed
under California's three strikes law against a challenge that it constituted cruel and unusual
punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. As in its prior decision in Harmelin v.
Michigan, 501 U.S. 957 (1991), the United States Supreme Court could not agree on the precise
reasoning for upholding the sentence. Nevertheless, with the decision in Ewing and the
companion case Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63 (2003), the Court effectively foreclosed
criminal defendants from arguing that their noncapital sentences were disproportional to the
crime they had committed.
Ewing was represented in the Court by Quin Denvir. The Attorney General of California argued
for the State of California. Michael Chertoff argued on behalf of the United States as amicus
curiae.

Contents
[hide]

1 Facts

2 Plurality decision

3 Dissents

4 See also

5 Notes

6 External links

Facts[edit]
Viewed separately from his criminal history, the crime Gary Ewing committed in this case is
relatively benign. In 2000 he stole three golf clubs worth $399 each from the pro shop of the El
Segundo Golf Course in El Segundo, California. He slipped them down the leg of his pants, and
a shop employee called the police when he noticed Ewing limping out of the pro shop.[1]
Ewing was charged with and convicted of felony grand theft of personal property.[2] Under
California law, felony grand theft is a "wobbler," meaning that both the prosecutor and the trial
judge have discretion to reduce the seriousness of the crime to a misdemeanor.[3] Although Ewing
asked the trial court to exercise its discretion in this way, thus making him ineligible for
sentencing under the three strikes law, the trial judge declined to do so, in part based on Ewing's
extensive criminal history:[4]

Ewing committed his first crime in 1984 when he was 22 years old. He pleaded guilty to
theft, and received a six-month suspended sentence.

In 1988 Ewing was convicted of felony grand theft auto and sentenced to a year in jail
and three years' probation.

In 1990, Ewing was convicted of petty theft and sentenced to 60 days in jail and three
years' probation.

In 1992, Ewing was convicted of battery and sentenced to 30 days in jail.

Sometime in the first nine months of 1993 Ewing was convicted of burglary, possession
of drug paraphernalia, appropriating lost property, unlawful possession of a firearm, and
trespassing.

In October and November 1993, Ewing committed his most serious crimes to datea
string of burglaries and robbery at apartment complexes in Long Beach, California,
where he made off with money, electronics, and credit cards.

In December 1993 Ewing was arrested on the premises of another Long Beach apartment
complex, where police found a knife used in the prior robbery, along with a glass cocaine
pipe, on his person. He was convicted this time of one count of first-degree robbery and
three counts of residential burglary, and sentenced to nine years in prison.

Ewing was paroled in 1999, ten months before he stole the golf clubs from the pro shop in El
Segundo.[5]
At sentencing on the golf club theft, the judge used the 1993 burglaries and robbery to impose
the 25-to-life sentence under California's three strikes law.[6]
Ewing appealed his conviction to the California Court of Appeal, which rejected his challenge
that the 25-year sentence was grossly disproportional to the crime. The California Supreme Court
denied review.[7]

Plurality decision[edit]
Justice O'Connor wrote an opinion for herself, Chief Justice Rehnquist, and Justice Kennedy.
Under the Eighth Amendment, a narrow proportionality principle applies to noncapital sentences.
Before Ewing, the Court had from time to time examined lengthy sentences imposed for
relatively minor crimes. In Rummel v. Estelle, 445 U.S. 263 (1980), the Court upheld a life
sentence for obtaining $120.75 by false pretenses imposed on a three-time offender under Texas's
recidivist statute. In Solem v. Helm, 463 U.S. 277 (1983), the Court struck down a life without
parole sentence imposed on a defendant who had committed a seventh nonviolent felony. Most
recently, in Harmelin v. Michigan, 501 U.S. 957 (1991), the Court upheld a life without parole
sentence imposed on a first-time offender convicted of possession of more than 650 grams of
cocaine. Against this backdrop of case law, O'Connor recited that the gross disproportionality
principle contained in the Eighth Amendment would require striking down only an extreme
noncapital sentence, such as a life sentence for overtime parking.
Three-strikes laws, O'Connor observed, represented a new trend in criminal sentencing. "These
laws respond[] to widespread public concerns about crime by targeting the class of offenders
who pose the greatest threat to public safety: career criminals." Such laws were a "deliberate
policy choice" on the part of legislatures to isolate those who have "repeatedly engaged in
serious or violent criminal behavior" from the rest of society in order to protect public safety. For
O'Connor, the desire to punish repeat criminals more harshly was "no pretext" for the legitimate
policy choice that the three-strikes law implemented. Such laws serve the valid penological goals
of incapacitation and deterrence. Although California's three-strikes law may have generated
some controversy, "we do not sit as a superlegislature to second-guess" the policy choices made
by particular states. "It is enough that the State of California has a reasonable basis for believing
that dramatically enhanced sentences for habitual felons advances the goals of its criminal justice
system in any substantial way."
Ewing's crime was not simply that of stealing three golf clubsit was stealing three golf clubs
after being convicted of two violent or serious felonies. "In weighing the gravity of Ewing's
offense, we must place on the scales not only his current felony, but also his long history of

felony recidivism. Any other approach would fail to accord proper deference to the policy
judgments that find expression in the legislature's choice of sanctions." Ewing's sentence might
be long, but it "reflects a rational judgment, entitled to deference, that offenders who have
committed serious or violent felonies and who continue to commit felonies must be
incapacitated." For this reason, O'Connor reasoned that Ewing's 25-years-to-life sentence did not
violate the Eighth Amendment.
Justice Scalia was willing to accept that the Eighth Amendment contained a gross
disproportionality requirement "if I felt I could intelligently apply it." However, because a
criminal sentence can have many justificationsnot simply retribution, a goal to which
proportionality is inherently linkedit became impossible to intelligently apply a proportionality
requirement to noncapital sentences. Even so, Justice Scalia concurred in the judgment that
Ewing's sentence was constitutional.
Justice Thomas believed that the Eighth Amendment contained no proportionality principle at all,
and thus concurred in the judgment.

Dissents[edit]
Justice Stevens explained that a proportionality principle for noncapital sentences was
compatible with the Eighth Amendment. After all, judges must determine the proportionality of
fines, bail, and death sentences. There should be no reason why these lesser and greater forms of
punishment should be subject to a proportionality requirement, but not the length of a prison
sentence.
Judges have historically exercised much discretion in criminal sentencing. Much of this
discretion had been conferred by legislatures, who fixed criminal penalties over very broad
ranges. "It was not unheard of for a statute to authorize a sentence ranging from one year to life,
for example." In order to exercise this discretion, judges had to take into account all the goals of
punishment in fixing a proportional sentence. There was no reason for Stevens that the Eighth
Amendment could not do this work. "I think it clear that the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of
cruel and unusual punishments expresses a broad and basic proportionality principle that takes
into account all of the justifications for penal sanctions."
Justice Breyer conceded that successful proportionality challenges to criminal sentences should
be rare, but argued that Ewing's sentence could be successfully challenged as disproportional.
For Breyer, three characteristics of a sentence bear on whether it is proportional: the length of the
sentence in real time, the conduct that triggered the sentence, and the offender's criminal history.
Although Ewing was a recidivist, his present crime was not violent, and so he should not have
been sentenced as harshly as a recidivist who had committed yet another violent crime. The
experience of some federal judges, as described by data aggregated by the United States
Sentencing Commission, suggested that Ewing would not have been treated so harshly under
federal sentencing law. Finally, the fact that Ewing's sentence would have been the same if he
had been convicted of a truly violent crime like rape or murder suggested it was too harsh a
sentence for a shoplifter, even a recidivist shoplifter like Ewing. "Outside the California three

strikes context, Ewing's recidivist sentence is virtually unique in its harshness for his offense of
conviction, and by a considerable degree."

Three Strikes Laws

Also found in: Wikipedia.
Three Strikes Laws

Criminal statutes that mandate increased sentences for repeat offenders, usually after three
serious crimes.
Beginning in the early 1990s, states began to enact mandatory sentencing laws for repeat
criminal offenders. These statutes came to be known as "three strikes laws," because they were
invoked when offenders committed their third offense. By 2003 over half the states and the
federal government had enacted three strikes laws. The belief behind the laws was that getting
career criminals off the streets was good public policy. However, the laws have their critics, who
charge that sentences are often disproportionate to the crimes committed and that incarceration of
three strikes inmates for 25 years to life would drive up correctional costs. Nevertheless, the U.S.
Supreme Court has upheld three strikes laws and has rejected the argument that they amount to
Cruel and Unusual Punishment.
The state of Washington passed the first three strikes law in 1993. Anyone convicted of three
separate violent felonies must be sentenced to life in prison with no chance for Parole. The state
of California followed, in 1994, by enacting a three strikes law that mandates a sentence of 25
years to life for a third felony conviction. Unlike Washington, the California law counts
nonviolent felonies, such as Burglary and theft, as "strike" offenses. The popularity of the three
strikes law in California has been pronounced. By 2001 over 50,000 criminals had been
sentenced under the new law, far more than any other state, with almost one-quarter of the
inmates facing a minimum of 25 years in prison. Not surprisingly, California's law has drawn the
most attention in the debate over three strikes statutes.
The California law originally gave judges no discretion in setting prison terms for three strikes
offenders. However, the California Supreme Court ruled, in 1996, that judges, in the interest of
justice, could ignore prior convictions in determining whether an offender qualified for a three
strikes sentence. Prosecutors have the greatest discretion; they may decide whether to count
certain crimes as strikes when they file their criminal complaint. Critics have charged that this
system introduces the worst of both worlds: mandatory sentences for those charged under the law
and unequal application of the law. The disparity in prosecutorial use of the Californian law has
meant that the law is rarely used in San Francisco but is used heavily in other parts of the state.
Supporters of three strikes laws have argued that the plummeting crime rates of the 1990s were
due in part to this tough new sentencing scheme. They especially rely on California statistics,

which cite the fact that approximately 1,200 offenders are sentenced per year in California under
the three strikes law. They call the law a success since offenders are off the street for at least 25
years and are not able to harm the public again.
The three strikes sentencing of offenders who have committed a number of violent crimes has
rarely drawn much criticism. Concerns about the fairness and proportionality of the law have
been raised when an offender is sent to prison for 25 years for shoplifting or some other minor
property crime. Critics note that a 25-year sentence for a third strike shoplifting offense is the
same sentence meted out to those who commit murder. Long sentences for relatively minor
offenses, they contend, amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, which is barred by the Eighth
Amendment. By the late 1990s a number of appeals had been raised in state and federal courts
based on the disproportionality argument.
The case of Leandro Andrade became a focal point in the argument over the constitutionality of
California's three strikes law. Andrade was convicted of two counts of petty theft for shoplifting a
total of nine videotapes from two Kmart stores. The value of the tapes stolen amounted to
$153.54. Under California law, a petty theft charge is usually a misdemeanor with a penalty of up
to six months in county jail and a fine of up to $1,000. However, the prosecutor had the
discretion to elevate the charges to felony level offenses. Andrade, who was a heroin addict, had
a string of burglary, theft, and drug convictions on his criminal record. The prosecutor charged
him with two counts of felony theft and a jury convicted Andrade on both counts.
HAVE THREE-STRIKES LAWS WORKED TO REDUCE RECIDIVISM?
Most state and federal laws impose stiffer sentences for repeat offenders, but they do not impose
punishments as harsh as "Three Strikes and You're Out" (TSAYO) laws. TSAYO laws mandate
that a heavy sentence be imposed on persons who are convicted of a third felony. The minimum
prison sentence required by such laws is typically between 25 years and life. The federal
government and more than two dozen states have passed TSAYO legislation since 1992.
TSAYO legislation is designed to protect society from dangerous individuals who show a pattern
of lawlessness, incapacitate repeat felony offenders by keeping them behind bars, and deter
others from committing similar criminal offenses. National criminal justice statistics show that
the number of violent crimes has precipitously dropped over the last eight years. TSAYO
legislation is not without its critics, however. In 1998 several studies called into doubt the
effectiveness of three-strikes laws. Constitutional challenges have been leveled against TSAYO
laws at both the state and federal levels, but courts and legislatures have resisted overturning
them.
In 1994 Congress passed the VIOLENT CRIME CONTROL AND LAW ENFORCEMENT ACT
(VCCLEA). Public Law 103322, September 13, 1994, 108 Stat 1796. It imposes a mandatory
sentence of life imprisonment without Parole on defendants who are convicted of a serious
violent federal felony when they have two or more prior serious violent felonies or one or more
serious violent felony convictions and one or more serious drug offense convictions. The first

two convictions may be for state or federal offenses, but the third conviction must be for a
federal offense before the VCCLEA three-strikes provision applies.
VCCLEA defines "serious violent felony" to include murder, voluntary Manslaughter, assault
with intent to commit murder or rape, aggravated Sexual Abuse, Kidnapping, aircraft Piracy,
Robbery, Carjacking, Extortion, Arson, and firearms use or possession, among others. 18
U.S.C.A. 3559. Offenses committed at the state level need not be deemed a felony by the state to
trigger the VCCLEA three-strikes provision as long as the state offense is "seriously violent,"
meaning the offense is similar to those specified by the VCCLEA. "Serious drug offense" is
defined by the VCCLEA as knowingly or intentionally manufacturing, distributing, dispensing,
or possessing with intent to manufacture, distribute, or dispense enumerated controlled
substances. Drug offenses committed at the state level are considered "serious" under VCCLEA
if they would be punishable by the federal controlled substances laws.
The impetus behind TSAYO laws came from a string of highly publicized cases in which a crime
victim was viciously attacked by a repeat offender on parole. One of the most publicized cases
was that of 12-year-old Polly Klaas from California. In 1993 she was kidnapped, molested, and
murdered by Richard Allen Davis, a SEX OFFENDER with a long history of criminal convictions.
Polly's father, Marc, appeared on a number of national television programs to attack the criminal
justice system's lenient treatment of repeat felony offenders and to advocate the enactment of
three-strikes laws. Relatives of other victims, concerned citizens, prosecutors, and politicians
followed suit.
Washington state's legislature was the first to respond, passing TSAYO legislation in 1993.
West's RCWA 9.94A.392 et seq. The law mandates life in prison after conviction on any three of
about 40 felonies, ranging from murder to robbery and vehicular assault. Defendants convicted
under this law are not eligible for parole, nor may their sentence be suspended or shortened.
California and 11 other states passed similar laws in 1994. Nine more states were added to the
list a year later. By the year 2000 more than 24 states had adopted TSAYO laws of their own.
Georgia took matters a step further, enacting a "Two Strikes and You're Out" law. Ga. Code Ann.
S 17106.1(b). Felons convicted of the state's most serious crimes only twice are sentenced to
life in prison without parole. Known as "the seven deadly sins," these crimes are murder, armed
robbery, rape, kidnapping, aggravated Sodomy, aggravated Child Molestation, and aggravated
sexual Battery.
Despite their popularity in the early 1990s, TSAYO laws have come under severe attack in the
late 1990s. In 1998 several studies were released that questioned the effectiveness of such laws.
Four studies were largely responsible for driving the debate: one by the Rand Institute, one by
the National Institute of Justice, one by the Justice Policy Institute, and one by the Campaign for
Effective Crime Policy, a nonpartisan group comprised of wardens, prosecutors, and law
enforcement officials.

The studies revealed two kinds of results. In most states, little had changed. Washington had
convicted 66 people under its TSAYO law. Arkansas had 12 convictions and Alaska,
Connecticut, Louisiana, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and New Jersey had
no more than six. Wisconsin had invoked its law only once, while no one in Utah, Virginia,
Montana, Tennessee, New Mexico, or Colorado had ever been prosecuted for a third-strike
offense. Instead, the states that let their TSAYO laws lay idle were still seeking harsh
punishments for dangerous recidivists, but under repeat-offender statutes that had been on the
books for decades. In other words, for these states the TSAYO laws represented a symbolic
measure that neither improved nor diminished a prosecutor's ability to keep dangerous recidivists
off the streets. Similarly, the studies showed that only 35 offenders had been convicted of a third
strike at the federal level through 1997.
The results were vastly different in California and Georgia. California had imprisoned more than
4,800 criminals for 25 years to life on third strikes; the state also identified more than 40,000
second-strike offenders who would await such a sentence were they subsequently convicted for
any one of roughly 500 crimes. Georgia had sent approximately 1,000 defendants to prison for
life without parole under its two strikes law and identified another 1,000 offenders eligible for
that fate were they to subsequently commit one of the "seven deadly sins."
These studies did more than arm opponents of TSAYO laws with evidence of disparate results.
They suggested that the laws had been enforced more often against minority offenders than
against white offenders. In California only 1,237 of the more than 4,800 defendants sentenced for
a third strike were white; 2,138 were African American, 1,262 were Latino, and 201 were
classified as "other." The studies further indicated that these minority offenders were mostly
being punished for nonviolent third strikes. Statistics demonstrated that more than twice as many
defendants' third-strike offenses were for drug possession or petty theft as for murder, rape, or
kidnapping. Some of these nonviolent third strikes included seemingly innocuous offenses, such
as shoplifting, stealing packages of steak, and drinking alcohol at a liquor store without paying
for it.
Proponents of TSAYO laws have not been dissuaded by these results. Prosecutors say that these
laws remain a vital tool for them to hang over the heads of first- and second-time offenders. They
contend that seemingly "harmless" third-strike offenses are often isolated from the first and
second strikes that place the defendant in a less sympathetic context. For example, an individual
who was prosecuted for a third strike after he stole a bottle of vitamins had eight prior
convictions, one of which was for robbery. Another individual who was prosecuted for bigamy
under California's TSAYO law had prior convictions for armed robbery. Prosecutors also point to
statistics reflecting a dramatic decline in violent crime over the last eight years as conclusive
proof of TSAYO laws' effectiveness.
Opponents of TSAYO laws acknowledge that prison populations have drastically increased in
some states due in part to incarceration of third-strike offenders, but they question whether this
result is entirely good. Reports indicate that prisons in California and Georgia are severely

overcrowded. The Georgia Department of Corrections estimates that it needs nearly 14,000 more
beds and a budget increase of 25 percent to accommodate the overflowing prison population. In
the meantime, state prisons have erected tents as cell blocks, moved bunks into common areas,
and housed three inmates in cells designed for two.
California officials have predicted that its prisons will experience a shortage of 70,000 beds from
convictions under the state's TSAYO laws. They also predict that the number of inmates age 50
to 64 will increase 80 percent by 2013, and the number of prisoners 65 and older will increase by
144 percent. They agonize over booming medical costs spent to treat geriatric prisoners and
worry that the money being spent on them comes from funds designated for schools, roads, and
neighborhood programs. According to one study, California spends about $1,000 on medical
expenses for the average inmate, but more than $6,000 a year for inmates older than 50.
While these figures have caused concern among even the staunchest proponents of three-strikes
legislation, no TSAYO law has been repealed at the state or federal level. Even legislative
proposals to study the law's impact have been rejected in California, being vetoed first by a
Republican governor and then by a Democratic one. The fact that California's TSAYO law is
regularly used by state prosecutors and universally hated by defendants, the governors said,
speaks for itself.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit became the first state or federal court to strike
down a TSAYO law in Andrade v. Attorney General of State of California, 270 F.3d 743 (9th Cir.
2001). The defendant in that case, Leandro Andrade, received a prison sentence of 50 years to
life for petty theft of $154 worth of children's videotapes from two Kmart stores. Petty theft is a
misdemeanor in California, punishable by no more than six months in jail. However, California
law provides that petty theft by a person with a prior conviction for a property crime is a
"wobbler" offense, meaning the crime can be prosecuted as either a misdemeanor or a felony.
Andrade had no prior violent offenses, but because he had previously committed three burglaries
in one day, his two instances of shoplifting were prosecuted as felonies, and the trial court
imposed an indeterminate life sentence with no possibility of parole until after he had served 50
years of his sentence. Andrade was 37-years-old when he started serving his sentence.
"The punishment raised an inference of gross disproportionality when compared to defendant's
crime," the Ninth Circuit wrote. Even in light of the defendant's six prior nonviolent felony and
misdemeanor convictions, the sentence was substantially more severe than sentences for most
violent crimes in California and was unusual even when compared to applications of TSAYO
laws applied to violent felons in other states, the Ninth Circuit concluded. The Ninth Circuit also
concluded that the California Supreme Court, in upholding the defendant's sentence, failed to
give proper consideration to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Solem v. Helm, 463 U.S. 277,
103 S.Ct. 3001, 77 L.Ed.2d 637 (1983), a case holding that a life sentence under a South Dakota
recidivist law for writing a bad check amounted to Cruel and Unusual Punishment.

The state of California appealed, and the U.S. Supreme Court reversed. Lockyer v. Andrade, ___
U.S. ___ 123 S.Ct. 1166, 155 L.Ed.2d 144 (2003). Writing for a five-person majority, Justice
Sandra Day O'Connor noted that the Ninth Circuit overturned the California Supreme Court's
decision pursuant to a Habeas Corpus petition. However, O'Connor wrote, 28 U.S.C.A.
2254(d)(1) only gives federal courts authority to overturn state court decisions in habeas
proceedings if the state court decision was contrary to or an unreasonable application of clearly
established federal law.
Although O'Connor agreed that Solem and Lockyer were similar cases, she emphasized that a
decision may only be deemed "contrary to clearly established precedent" if the state court
applied a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in the Supreme Court's cases or
confronts facts that are materially indistinguishable from a Supreme Court decision and the state
court nevertheless arrives at a different result. This did not happen here, O'Connor said. The
defendant in Solem was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, while the
defendant in Lockyer became eligible for parole after serving 50 years of his sentence. This fact
made the two cases materially different, O'Connor said, and justified the California Supreme
Court's decision upholding Andrade's sentence.
Cross-references

Cruel and Unusual Punishment; Determinate Sentence; Recidivism; Parole.

These separate convictions, along with a prior first-degree burglary conviction, triggered the
three strikes law. Because the two thefts were treated as separate incidents, the three strikes law
was applied to both charges, leading to two consecutive terms of 25 years to life in prison.
Andrade could not apply for parole until he served 50 years in prison, at which time he would be
87 years old. The California courts upheld this sentence as proportionate. The Ninth Circuit
Court of Appeals ruled that Andrade's sentence was unconstitutional because it was grossly
disproportionate. Although the California law was unconstitutional as applied, the Ninth Circuit
refused to hold that the "three strikes and you're out" law was generally unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court, in a 54 decision, overturned the Ninth Circuit decision and upheld the
constitutionality of the three strikes law as applied to Andrade (Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63,
123 S. Ct. 1166, 155 L. Ed. 2d 144 [2003]. The Court held that federal courts must give due
deference to state court sentencing decisions. In a prior ruling the Court had stated that
legislatures must be given "broad discretion to fashion a sentence that fits within the scope of the
proportionality principle." The "precise" contours of this principle were "unclear," which meant
that state courts had more latitude to uphold sentences such as Andrade's. The Court further held
that Andrade's sentence was not grossly disproportionate.
Justice DAVID SOUTER, in a dissenting opinion, sided with the Ninth Circuit's views. A prior
Supreme Court decision had voided a life sentence given to a repeat offender for committing a
theft valued at $150. Justice Souter argued that Andrade's criminal background, coupled with the
petty thefts, was strikingly similar. Though Andrade would be eligible for parole at age 87, it

constituted "the practical equivalence of a life sentence without parole." Souter was also troubled
by the state's use of the two minor theft charges, just weeks apart, as the second and third strikes.
In his view, "Andrade did not somehow become twice as dangerous to society when he stole the
second handful of videotapes." A 25-year sentence would have been reasonable but 50 years was
disproportionate.
Though critics of the law were disappointed by the decision, they argued that the economic cost
of incarcerating three strikes inmates may ultimately lead to the repeal of such laws. In
California it will cost an estimated $700 million per year to incarcerate these offenders, and over
a billion dollars to construct new prisons to house the escalating number of inmates. As the state
contends with caring for an aging prison population it will be forced to decide whether it wants
to allocate limited resources to maintain the three strikes law.
Further readings

D'Addesa, Danielle M. 2003. "The Unconstitutional Interplay of California's Three Strikes Law
and California Penal Code Section 666." University of Cincinnati Law Review 71 (spring).
Zimring, Franklin E., Sam Kamin, and Gordon Hawkins. 2003. Punishment and Democracy:
Three Strikes and You're Out in California. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
Cross-references

Determinate Sentence; Prisoners' Rights.

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